


Prestissimo

by midnightdiddle (gooseberry)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Illegitimacy, Language Barrier, Mother-Son Relationship, Pianists, mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-04
Updated: 2007-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-01 04:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12697422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/midnightdiddle
Summary: "Giovanni's bastard," the baby says, and the sound of his father's name feels like a hit in Hayato's stomach. "Useless."--Hayato-fic.  A "what if his mom hadn't died?" fic.  Or, In Which Hayato is aPansyPianist.  Hayato/Piano, sorta, and really vague, if you squint and look sideways, Hayato/Tsuna.





	Prestissimo

His mother gives him pajamas for his fourth birthday, a blanket with trains on it, a stuffed elephant. She kisses his cheek, holds him tight, and tells him, "Happy birthday, Hayato."

When he's seven, she sends a thick folder through the mail, sheet music and piano books with notes and fingerings carefully written in pencil. He plays the piano that night, and his foot can nearly reach the pedals. By the time she comes for his eighth birthday, he can reach the pedal, and she sits beside him as he plays the piano.

When he's eleven, she's in England, sending postcards every week. She sends him a little box, a model car like Shamal's, and billfolds signed by composers and conductors, with notes to Italia's little pianist.

He plays for his father's friends, and his father pulls him close, rests a hand on Hayato's shoulders.

"My son," his father says, "is Italy's greatest pianist," and he is. He leaves two months later for Vienna, where he lives and sleeps and eats and plays the piano night and day, until his fingernails rip off, and blood drips on the keys.

He plays longer, and harder, and faster, and he's better, and better, and he's the best, rising faster than anyone else. His mother's postcards gather on his bedside table, written to Europe's pianist, and his father sends gifts of money and food and beautiful people, all who stand near the piano and listen to Hayato play. And play Hayato does, faster and faster, spinning and falling and with fingers spread wide over the keys, foot upon the pedal.

At nineteen he's playing with his mother, in concert halls and studios, and she's faster, always faster, but he's catching up, and his father will never catch them by the heel. His mother's fingers are small and bruised, wrapped carefully in bandages, and his fingernails are black, blood crusted along the sides. The keys, though, are white, and spotless, and the music is bright and clear, and his birthday is a beautiful one.

"Japan," his teacher says, "loves your mother. They'll love you even more."

He flies into Japan in the early morning, sleepy and hungry, and Japan takes him at arms' length, proclaims him and declaims him. He plays upon their stages, his name written in kanji, in his mother's family name, and they call to him in Japanese.

He calls back, words awkward in his mouth, and when he sleeps, he dreams in Italian.

They slam into him backstage, as he's pulling at the bandages on his fingers, feeling hot and sweaty and still on his rush, high and shaky after the concert. The murmur of voices from the audience is a buzz in his ears, and the voices back stage are laughing.

"You," he picks out, and "Music," and there's a man standing in front of him, shorter than he is, and entirely unremarkable.

The man's mouth moves again, and Hayato shakes his head, says, "No, no Japanese," and the man's frowning, looking around.

"You," the man says, and his Italian is as painful as Hayato's Japanese, "very good."

"Thank you," Hayato says in his stupid Japanese, feeling ridiculous, and happy, and still so high up, fucking flying on it. "Your name?"

"Sawada Tsuna," the man says, and then there's another wash of performers, and they're grabbing Hayato, shouting, and they're taking him drinking, and he lets them drag him along, laughing and feeling so adrift, so empty and high, like he'll never touch earth again.

Sawada's sitting in Hayato's dressing room after the next concert, and there's another man with him, carrying a sword, and Hayato's already turning to go back out the door, because he didn't come for this, never came for this, because this is what he's been running from for all his life, running with his mother, and his father will never catch their heels.

"Wait," Sawada says, and like hell Hayato's going to wait. He has the door open, is already taking a step into the hallway, when the hilt of the sword taps his chest, and second man is smiling at him.

"What," he asks a few minutes later, sitting in his chair, rewrapping his fingers furiously, "do you want?"

"Nothing, nothing," Sawada says, and then, "Your music is very good." It sounds rehearsed, like a phrase from a language book, and Hayato hates the way he's already feeling mollified.

"Then why?" he starts to ask, but then someone's talking in quick Italian, and it's a baby, and while Hayato's trying to wrap his head around that, around two Japanese men with a sword carrying around an Italian baby, the baby's jumping onto the counter to look closely at Hayato.

"Giovanni's bastard," the baby says, and the sound of his father's name feels like a hit in Hayato's stomach. "Useless."

"Reborn!" Sawada says sharply, and Hayato's already standing up, clenching his fists until his fingers feel like they're burning.

"I'm leaving," he says sharply, and this time they let him go, the baby already turning to talk to the men in Japanese.

He doesn't see Sawada for half a week, and it's his last concert. The curtain has already been drawn twice, and the violinists are mulling around him, waiting to see if the conductor will call them for another encore. Hayato's impatient because his plane leaves for Italy in only a few hours, a midnight flight home. He wants to sit at his mother's piano, listen to his sister complain about her flaky boyfriend, watch his father's men stand at the doorways.

He's turning for the stage, the conductor calling for another song, when he catches Sawada in the corner of his eye, standing just backstage, nearly in the stagelights. Hayato stares at him, and Sawada looks back, gives a strange smile, and Hayato stumbles to the piano, clattering against the piano bench. He misses a note halfway through the piece, finger slipping from the sharp to the natural, and Hayato wants, more than anything, to just go home.

Hayato's slipping his rings onto his fingers when Sawada comes into his dressing room, leans back against the closed door. Sawada's alone this time, no swords or babies or men with scars down their chins, and Sawada looks so average. It's always been the average ones, Hayato's learned, that are the most dangerous.

"What?" he asks, twisting the last ring so the skull's facing upward. He checks, all seven rings, and grabs his coat. He's ready to leave, to be _done_ , and this is all too much for him. He's always been best at running away.

"You," Sawada says, and says something in Japanese, too fast for Hayato to catch it. Hayato shakes his head, starts to put on his coat. Sawada says it again, slower, and Hayato catches, "Are you?"

"Am I?" Hayato repeats back. Sawada shakes his head, looking frustrated, and says, "Are you _happy_?"

Hayato smiles, confused but polite, always polite, because he's had a gun to his head, and men screaming in the next room over, all his life, and the boss's bastards are always polite, waiting for someone to blow their heads off. "I'm happy. Excuse me."

Sawada catches him before he gets out the door, grabbing Hayato's coat, and then Sawada's saying, in that same practiced, phrase-book tone, "You have very nice hands."

Hayato's frozen, scared and confused and wanting to kick and scream, when Sawada touches his hand, says, "You have very beautiful hands."

The plane reaches Italy in the early morning, just before dawn, and his hands still feel cold, fingers numb. He breathes on his fingers, bites the tips and tastes iron. One of his father's men is waiting for him just outside the terminal, and another is waiting with a car, and they nod at him, nod in the rearview mirror as he dozes, leaning against the car's window. They touch him when he gets home, calloused hands on his shoulders, helping him up and out of the car, and he shakes them off, stumbles to his room.

Bianchi's sitting at his piano, her hair twisted up, and she takes his kiss with a murmur, her fingers spreading over the keys. He kneels beside her, lies his head in her lap, and listens to her play, her fingers sounding like his mother. The music is slow, and light, a lullaby to trap him here, and he'll sleep here today, and tonight, and in the morning he'll run away, back to his mother and Vienna.

Hayato plays faster by faster, and runs harder by harder, and is happier each day. Hayato is his mother's son, and his father will never catch them by the heel.


End file.
